Parabasis

Just Say "No!"

I don't want John McCain to be President, but swift-boating him is beyond the pale, period.

For Brian Silliman

Cast of Charlie Brown as Watchmen.

My Next Column Is Up

I swear I'll get off the genre kick soon, but in the meantime, my next column is up, a rave about the BBC's State of Play, which should be considered a classic of the thriller genre:

There was a time roughly corresponding with the 1970s heyday of American cinema when great thrillers like The Conversation and Dog Day Afternoon were regularly churned out by Hollywood. Nowadays, crackerjack entertainments such as the Bourne movies only come around once in awhile to remind us how it is done, and artistically successful thrillers that don’t trade in violent spectacle are an endangered species. Thankfully, other countries have kept up the tradition, and if one is willing to look for them, good foreign-made thrillers are out there for the taking. One recent example, the BBC’s 2003 miniseries, State of Play, has finally been released on DVD in the United States in anticipation of its Hollywood remake, and it is a sterling example of what a thriller can be: stylish, expertly crafted and addictively suspenseful.

Etc. etc... RTWT here and, if you get a chance, watch the miniseries.

From The Dept. Of Burying the Lede

Article Title:  Treasury Rolls Out Overhaul of Financial Regulators

Appearing In: The NY Times

First Paragraph: Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. on Monday formally laid out an ambitious plan to overhaul the regulatory apparatus that oversees the nation’s financial system. Senior lawmakers and industry lobbyists predicted that most of the plan would run into difficulty.

Important Paragrah: The administration’s proposal will do almost nothing to regulate the alphabet soup of sophisticated financial products that have fueled the financial crisis. And it will not rein in practices that have been linked to the mortgage crisis, like packaging risky loans into securities carrying the highest ratings.

Important Paragraph's Placement in Article: Paragraph 12

Question of the Day

Is Common People by Pulp the best single of the 1990s? If not, you must provide alternatives!

Sadly, No! Has a Dialogue On Race

Brilliant result here. Of course, Lou Dobbs is mad that "cotton pickin'" black leaders keep telling him what he can and can't say. Jesus Christ, can't they fire that guy already?

Looking Back On March

Wow, March was a busy month. Anne and I applied for a major grant, I moved forward with the whole grad school process, I curated a reading series, got a job as a columnist and put up two Rapid Response Team's. Sheesh! I sorta hadn't realized how busy it was until this past weekend when Anne and I were out to dinner. I think my output on this blog might've diminished a bit because of all of this. I used to do like at least one substantive post a weekday. I don't think there's any way I can keep that up in light of everything else I'm doing, but I still love little ole Parabasis, and much of what I accomplished in the last month wouldn't have been possible without it, so I still plan on sticking around and writing as much as I can. Over the next few weeks, I'll have a day job which might make those efforts a bit more complicated, but we'll see. Thanks for staying tuned.

Fight Girl Battle World

For those of you who missed FGBW, which unfortunately closed this weekend... alls I can say is hot damn those Vampire Cowboys know how to put on a good show. One of the more consistently funny and inventive plays I've seen in a long time. Robert Ross Parker directed the shit out of Qui Nguyen's hilarious, cliche-ridden script. My personal favorite moment was a small grace note involving a floating dead body in outer space...

Anne and I saw it on Saturday and multiple times on Sunday we'd be sitting around and then of us would start giggling and would have to explain to the other one which part of the show they were remembering. The last time I felt that way was after Hot Fuzz so let me just say it... Fight Girl Battle World was the Hot Fuzz of plays. Pure, unadulterated, unapologetic fun delivered smartly on a gleaming technicolor plate.

Does Anyone Else Think This Ad Is, Uh, Terrible?

John McCain's first national spot:

Two things that lead me to conclude it's terrible. First: the line The American President Americans have been waiting for sounds like it was written to be on The Simpsons. Second, the specific way his POW times are used in the ad gave me the jibblies.

Two Comics Related Things

1 As an effort to clean out their inventory, Rocketship is having a big sale. Buy two trades, get one free! The sale lasts all weekend. I just picked up Rudu Modan's Exit Wounds, David B.'s Epileptic and Megan Kelso's The Squirrel Mother for under $50.00! Not bad... not bad at all!

2 If you are looking for trades to buy at that sale, might I suggest you pick up both Box Office Poison and Tricked by Alex Robinson? I'm working on a profile of Robinson for Buzzine, and thus have had the distinct pleasure of catching up on his work. The man is absurdly talented. He's like the Altman of comic books, a humanist and a cynic at the same time, able to create whole worlds out of individual characters, and, as he reveals in Tricked a sure hand at dense levels of thematic and narrative complexity. Oh, and both books are also cracking good yarns.